Do you enjoy eating healthy foods and want to see what the newest products on the market are? Then you need to go to either Expo East or Expo West. I cannot easily describe how huge the exhibits are, or how much fun it is to meet the people behind the brands. This year was even better than last year. Last year we went for one day and we only saw about 20 % of the booths. This year we knew what to expect and we stayed at the Days Inn, which was literally across the street from the Baltimore Convention center. Also this year, I was named one of the official Expo Bloggers, thank you for this honor! We hit the expo floor all three days and we met so many incredible people, tasted so many delicious products, and overall had an incredibly fun and exhausting time! This year my husband and daughter came along with me. We call my daughter the “mini-blogger” and she showed us that she could really work the expo floor. She approached each booth thoughtfully and listened to the story, tasted the products, and then gave an honest opinion. She posted here, what her 8 top items were that she discovered. Today I am sharing some of my favorite finds from Expo East. If you do not have time to read about all my favorite finds, just skip through to the end and enter my giveaway for some great products sent right to your door!

Now some of our favorite finds!

This year we saw lots of great trends including:

Kombucha was everywhere

Gluten Free is very popular. Tons of awesome options for celiacs and others who cannot eat gluten.

Non dairy milks made out of new ingredients

Waters of every kind, infused, flavored, sparkling, and more

Probiotics added to many products including yogurt, vitamins, water and chocolate!

I cannot list all of the awesome vendors we met in this one post. These are just a few of the hundreds of companies we spoke to. We will share more throughout the year as well.

Our favorite new finds from Expo East 2016

Ripple Milk is a new dairy free milk made out of yellow peas. I have seen the bottles at Target before but I just thought it was a fancy new package of regular milk. Nope, this dairy free milk looks cute and tastes delicious. The vanilla flavor was our favorite, it tasted similar to a glass of melted vanilla ice cream. The unsweetened would be great in a bowl of cereal. It is awesome to have some new options for us non-dairy milk drinkers. Ripple comes in four flavors and is high in protein, more calcium than milk, Omega 3s VitD & Iron, low in sugar, and quite delicious.

ProYos protein powered frozen yogurt tubes are amazing! Each tube has 20 grams of protein. For kids who are quite picky eaters and need to eat more protein, these are a great find. ProYo comes in 4 delicious flavors and the mini blogger tasted them all with a thumbs up.

My New England born husband fell in love with the Maple Guild. Their bottles of maple syrup are not only gorgeous, the contents is amazing too. They have branched out and also have created a maple water, a maple cream, infused syrups, maple sweetened iced teas and even a maple vinegar. The Maple Guild is innovating new products with fresh maple syrup all the time. We can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

The Sunshine Nut Company has great nuts as well as a great story. Each time you buy a bag of nuts you are supporting the workers in Mozambique, many who are orphans, who are harvesting the nuts. It was so wonderful hearing from the owner, his story of the Sunshine Nut Company and how it was founded. Through the success of this company he is helping to support this poor farming community in Africa. The nuts tasted fresh and delicious and we are proud to support them!

As long time vegans we have been big fans of the Field Roast company for many years. We are big fans of the burgers and sausages that they have created. At Expo East we were able to taste the Mac n’ Chao, a new vegan mac and cheese and it was so good. It has not come out yet, but it will be found in the frozen section and you will want to try both the creamy and the chili flavors. Keep an eye on this company, they are constantly coming up with new and delicious vegan products!

Karma wellness water was one of the mini bloggers favorite beverages from Expo East. This innovative bottle has vitamins and probiotics in the cap. After you open the cap, you push a button and watch the powder mix into the water. It tasted delicious and was very good for you! There are 9 different products, with and without probiotics. Each bottle is under 20 calories and 2 grams of sugar or less. We fell in love with this wellness water and we were so excited to see it for sale at Wegmans when we got home.

The Edward and Sons booth had so many awesome products and these delicious vegan 5 layer bars. I won’t tell you how many bars the mini blogger ate, but they were one of her favorite treats she tried. The organic sweetened condensed coconut milk is the perfect vegan substitute for any recipe that uses regular condensed milk. All of the products at this booth were awesome. Tons of vegan options and most of them organic too! If you need a vegan ingredient, I am pretty sure Edward and Sons carries it!

Vegan Rob’s is a snack company with unique and addictive snacks. These wild mushroom kettle potato chips were so good! They have tons of other interesting flavors including Cauliflower puffs, Spinach Strips, Asparagus Chips, and Jackfruit Puffs. They also have crazy awesome flavors of popcorn and crunchy chickpeas. All the ones we tried were amazing.

What can you win in this giveaway?

Tolerant Foods makes healthier pasta for your family. You will win one case of Energy Legume Blend Red Lentil Rotini. This pasta is 100% made from red lentils. It is kosher, gluten free, organic, nonGMO, and vegan. Each 3 oz serving has 19 grams of protein! I love to use this pasta in a casserole and the kids have no idea what it is made out of.

The Best of Expo East 2016 Full story at www.cookwith5kids.com

Banza pasta is made from my favorite ingredient, the chickpea! This protein packed pasta is now packaged in a mac and cheese box and it is so good. 18 grams of protein per serving and naturally gluten free. One winner will receive a case of mac and cheese from Banza!

Mini blogger fell in love with Smashmallows on her first day at Expo East. She visited their booth every few hours to have a marshmallow and chit chat with her new best friends. One winner will receive a case of each flavor of marshmallows. Their flavors are so cute, cinnamon churro, root beer float and mint chocolate chip to name a few!

One winner will receive a gift box of various products in the Bitsy’s BrainFood line. These treats are so tasty, while also being quite good for you. We got to speak with one of the founders for a long time and we loved the story behind this company. They could not find fun, healthy foods to buy for their kids so they decided to create some! These cookies, cereals, and crackers are so good that your family will switch to these products quite easily.

One winner will receive two coupons for Arctic Zero frozen desserts. These “ice cream” treats are gluten free, lactose free, GMO free and low calorie! Some flavors are only 150 calories for the entire pint! It is so nice to be able to eat a frozen treat without worrying about all the fat and calories that are usually included.

One winner will receive a sampler of these delicious Pure Genius Blondies and Brownies. Chickpeas are the main ingredients in this bar, but they taste so good, you will not even realize they are good for you! Mini blogger does not enjoy chickpeas, but she was in love with these bars. We loved chatting with the company owner and they even won a Nexty award, as pictured above!

Pure Growth Organics is a new line of organic snacks your family will love. They even have some of your favorite characters on the packages! The entire line includes sweet snacks like breakfast bars and animal crackers, salty snacks like pretzels, popcorn and super chips, and also oatmeal. Mini blogger tasted many of the products in this brand and she gave it two thumbs up.

MyMo Mochi Ice Cream was the mini bloggers favorite snack. This interesting dessert is a sweet ice cream covered in mochi. Mochi is a popular dessert in Japan made out of rice. This creative dessert is now found in many stores including Costco! Mini blogger showed how awesome it was by eating it for breakfast at Expo East daily.

Your last item in the giveaway is a prize pack from Cameron’s Coffee. These single serve coffees taste so much better than the coffee we usually have, and they carry over 50 blends and flavors. Each Betterbrew ecopod is made with renewable plant based materials with a compostable lid and ring! Many of the blends are greener and sustainable. Cameron’s coffee only sources 100% Arabica specialty grade beans from all over the world, and they also care for the well being of their workers. Cameron’s Coffee also sells whole bean bags, as well as tea single serve pods and loose tea as well.

Here is what you can win in this giveaway:

The winner must reside in the US and will win: 1 mixed case of Banza mac and cheese

Congrats on being named one of the Expo Bloggers. This sounds like a great event and I would love to go to one of these sometime. There are so many awesome food products here and it would be fun to test them all out. The Non-Dairy products is something I know my son would be very much interested in for sure. Thanks for sharing the giveaway and the awesome products.

Coconut milk is one of my all-time favourite ingredients to cook with! I would also be interested in trying the Karma water and the Arctic Zero ice cream. A good dairy-free, gmo-free (etc.) ice cream is hard to come by!

I would have loved to go to this – it sounds amazing! I am a college student majoring in Nutrition and I am really interested in exploring new, healthy products. Everything you posted looks absolutely delicious but I have been dying to try Pure Genius blondies. Also, the Ripple milk is something I have never heard of but would love to try. Thanks for sharing!

Wow! Now this would be right up my alley! We make our Kombucha – it is sold at our local stores, but it is fun to make – and those vegan 5 layer bars are making me hungry, even tho I’m really full from dinner! lol – along with the Pure Genius Blondies and Brownies, I am checking out the link you’ve supplied – thanks for sharing this 🙂